


Hope We Get There Soon

by agent-barnes-of-shield (Abby_Rose)



Category: Doctor Who (2005), Torchwood
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Happy Ending, M/M, Team as Family, self indulgent fluff piece, seriously I wrote this for no good reason other than I wanted it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-31
Updated: 2017-07-31
Packaged: 2018-12-09 12:12:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,302
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11668884
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Abby_Rose/pseuds/agent-barnes-of-shield
Summary: Jack comes home to Cardiff post the whole disaster with The Master and his paradox machine, only to be welcomed home by a very understanding Ianto, Owen, and Tosh.(Maybe one day I'll add more to this, but for now it's basically a self-indulgent fluff piece of Jack coming home to his Torchwood family)





	Hope We Get There Soon

  
If someone were to have told the man who would become Jack Harkness, that he would one day attach a semi-broken Vortex Manipulator to a TARDIS on the off chance he could get a video call up just to talk to a few 21st century humans in Wales – he would have laughed in their face. Yet, there he was hoping the Doctor would be too distracted by Rose’s reappearance to notice him pulling switches on a foreign console and whispering his prayers to the TARDIS. One of the monitors buzzed annoyingly and Jack tugged it to face him, grumbling unhappily.  
  
“Come on, come on. Please gorgeous, just this.”  
  
The monitor continued to buzz before it blinked once, twice, and a few stripes of static ran up the screen before an image began to form. A few pinkish blurs slowly appeared amongst the static.  
  
“Come on!” Jack hit the monitor and the TARDIS console flashed, all the lights blinking at once creating spots in front of his eyes, and the monitor cleared into a picture. At the same time a loud exclamation fill the space in surround sound that spooked Jack so badly he flinched and crouched for cover.  
  
“ _JACK! _”  
  
Jack stood quickly from his crouch, staring at the monitor and seeing three of the most beautifully familiar faces he’d witnessed in a long time. Each face looked a deliciously confused mix of concern, elation, and anger. Jack knew he was probably in for a good tongue lashing, but he couldn’t help but break out in to a wide grin.  
  
_Thank you, you gorgeous creature, _he thought. “Well _hell-o_ Torchwood.”  
  
“Jack! You bloody-” Owen hissed as Tosh elbowed him in the ribs, “God damnit woman!” Jack watched as Owen and Tosh bickered before his eyes were drawn to Ianto, who stood serenely in the background, impeccably dressed in a dark pinstripe suit and a purple shirt with a black and silver tie.  
  
He would bet his coat that the next words out of the Welshman’s mouth would not be complimentary.  
  
“Jack, next time a crazy Timelord decides to take over the planet, a heads up may be appropriate.”  
  
Oh yeah, Jack winced, the ice in Ianto’s words cut into his bones, but the context threw him.  
  
“What Timelord?  
  
Ianto’s eye twitched and Tosh and Owen cut to silence instantly. What followed next, Jack knew was a barrage of Welsh insults, perfectly enunciated, a verbal thrashing like no other. However, thanks to the TARDIS, Jack understood every word. He’d never had his mother insulted at the same time he was told to go fuck a sheep and that he’d sucked his uncle’s dick in such a lovely accent before and with such detail.  
  
When Ianto stopped for a break Jack was finally able to speak, “Missed you too, gorgeous.”  
  
Ianto flushed red and Owen smirked.  
  
“Jack, what just happened?”  
  
Jack shook his head, “Tosh, can you explain a paradox?”  
  
Her eyes widened and the smirk slipped from Owen’s face.  
  
“But everything’s back to normal even though the last thing I remember is hiding in a cave in the alps?” he flexed his hand, then crossed his arms tight against his chest. Tosh glanced up at him, Ianto never stopped staring at Jack.  
  
“You remember the year?” Jack’s voice was hoarse, and broke at the end.  
  
“No one else seems to, not even Gwen.” Ianto stated.  
  
Owen snorted for some reason and Tosh shook her head. Jack frowned.  
  
“None of you should remember anything. We reversed time, destroyed the paradox machine.”  
  
“ _You_ remember.”  
  
“I was in the center of the whole thing.” Jack retorted, meeting Owen’s glare, “But you were all on Earth, you’re back where you were when this whole thing started, presumably.”  
  
“More or less.” Ianto muttered, “Rift energy perhaps, sir?”  
  
Ianto was back to calling him ‘sir’, that bode well, “It’s as good a guess as any. I’ll try and get back as soon as I can.”  
  
“We’ll hold down the fort until you get back then sir.”  
  
Jack stared at his team, feeling all the space, distance, and time between them, “I’m coming back.” He implored.  
  
“We know, Jack.” Tosh smiled.  
  
The screen blinked black and Jack rubbed his eyes.  
  
“Torchwood Three I presume?” Martha Jones stepped around the console, for all her familiarity with the TARDIS, looking so out of place. Not unlike how Jack felt actually, but he plastered a grin on his face anyway.  
  
“Yup!”  
  
“That Welsh bloke sounded angry.”  
  
“Ianto? Nah, he’s…”  
  
Martha smiled, “So Ianto’s his name huh? Tish said you mentioned a bloke a couple of times.”  
  
“Oh?” Jack froze, mind travelling. He’d babbled a lot to Tish and her mother throughout the year. Random things, tiny things, insignificant things; things the Master couldn’t use against him. Simply to distract himself as his body slowly healed from the Master’s most recent ministrations.  
  
“She said you mentioned Welsh vowels and heavenly coffee.” Martha was prodding, prying, distracting herself from the return of the Doctor’s golden Rose.  
  
“I might have, his coffee is out…well, I can’t say out of this world can I?” he glanced around meaningfully, “Just imagine the greatest coffee you’ve ever had – it still won’t have been as good as his.” Jack turned with a smirk to leave, hoping to hide out in his room until the Doctor reappeared.  
  
“I don’t drink coffee.”  
  
“He’d convert you.”  
  
Martha watched Jack go and sighed, staring up at the faintly glowing column in the center of the console.  
  
“Looks like it’s just you and me again…blimey I must be losing it to be talking to a ship.” She left the control room to seek out her family, missing the sad blip of the console lights and the quiet rumble as the TARDIS’ course shifted directly to twenty-first century Cardiff.  
  
-  
  
Rose twisted a pink silky scarf between her fingers. How long had it been since she stood in this room, among these things? (Long enough in Pete’s world for her little brother to have taken his first steps, said his first word, understand that she was leaving.) The scarf had been a Christmas present a lifetime ago from Mickey when she was seventeen. It was soft and a little worn, but painfully familiar. Her Union Jack t-shirt she’d been wearing when she first met Jack Harkness was hung in the closet just as she’d left it. The room still smelt faintly of the peach body spray she used to use. Unless she asked the Doctor she would have no idea how long this room had stood empty, but part of her was scared to ask. She’d been gone long enough from this world, her world, for the Doctor to pick up Martha Jones. Martha, who was beautiful and smart and passionate and trekked the world for a year while her family was held captive by a madman all out of selfless devotion for the Doctor. Rose didn’t want to ask or know, she didn’t want to give voice to the fear she’d been replaced. She didn’t want to know how long it took for the Doctor to find someone to fill her place.  
  
“Rose?”  
  
She turned, the Doctor was seated on her bed, hands clasped on his lap. She smiled and walked to sit beside him. Two inches felt like twenty-miles and a thousand years. In all her time travelling in the TARDIS she had never felt so removed from the Doctor.  
  
“Everything’s the same.”  
  
“I couldn’t bear to change it.”  
  
The Doctor was staring at her in that ageless way of his, where it felt like he was watching her soul unravel and rebuild before his eyes, like he could see everything she was, everything she could be or could have been. It made her feel very young and very naked and very, very known.  
  
“You came back.”  
  
“Course I did.” Rose reached out, crossing the brink, took his hand and felt his grip tighten almost painfully while the bands around her heart loosened and released like thread pulled away by the wind. She didn’t let go.  
  
“You left your mum, your dad, your _home_.” The Doctor implored, eyes bright and shimmering full of hundreds of years of pain and love and wonder.  
  
“My home is wherever you are you daft man, I can’t have been gone so long you’d forget that.”  
  
“The Doctor chuckled and leaned towards her, pressing their foreheads together, “Oh I have missed you, Rose Tyler.” His voice was a prayer uttered in church for only the heavens to hear.  
____

__  
-  
_ _

Two weeks, two weeks and nothing. Ianto had gone back to his flat and found himself floundering in the lost familiarity. Jack had never been there, Tosh had never been there, Owen and Gwen had never been there. His flat was a place he had once dreamed of bringing Lisa home to. Now it was an empty place; isolated, full of unsettled memories in cardboard boxes and an obsessively ordered closet. Hell, the few pairs of jeans he’d found himself wearing since moving back to Cardiff had come out of a suitcase that was still tucked to the side of his bedroom.  
  
He’d lasted all of thirty minutes before he got to work.  
  
Lisa’s things had already been packed away or sent to her family, but the few mementos he’d kept (out of penance, guilt, nostalgia?) they were finally put away with memories good and bad. The storage facility where Torchwood kept a standing agreement was contacted. Forty-eight hours after talking with Jack, Lisa’s things –the things from their life together, his life before- were stored away neatly into a steel doored storage unit one row down from the life of Suzie Costello.  
  
_Here lie LisaHalletandIantoJones._  
  
Three days later he had found a new flat and employed Tosh and Gwen to help him fill it.  
  
All the old furniture was sold or stored and a new couch, bed, coffee table and the like (along with a floor rug Ianto did not remember purchasing yet somehow appeared) took up the space. He finally got the balls to call the storage facility back in London where he had stored all his old things from _Before Canary Wharf_. An entire life he’d hidden away he suddenly had back in front of him. Pieces of himself he’d forgotten existed uncurled and reached for the light. Books and DVDs, old journals (his mother’s cookbook, stained and wrinkled) the sketchbooks that he’d abandoned when his life went up in flames but had never even shown Lisa. Stupid small things (a tiny glittering crystal bear that had sat on the front shelf of his grandfather’s tailor shop during his childhood years; a pair of brass cufflinks that needed a shining; a wrinkled Christmas card signed by his nephew age four) all things from a life that felt like it had happened to someone else but Ianto needed to try and piece back together. It had been so long since he’d been someone of his own making, someone without Lisa, without Jack Harkness. Ianto needed to figure out who he was on his own for once in his damn life. He’d done it once, leaving Cardiff, leaving everyone he’ known; cutting ties, he’d made himself, he just had to figure out who that person was after Canary Wharf, after Lisa, in Torchwood Three.  


__  
_ _

He’d shelved the books and movies, tucked the journals into a corner in his closet, removed old photos from frames and placed those with the journals, placed the crystal bear on the mantle where it caught the light of the morning sun. He and Tosh left one day to pick up lunch and had come back to find Gwen had filled the empty frames with new photos of Torchwood Three (his favorite though he would never admit it, and maybe she did know him just a bit – was a group shot that he had no idea the origin of. No one was looking at the camera, in fact they all looked exhausted, but Jack was grinning, Ianto was holding a tray of coffee mugs, Owen was leaning against Tosh’s desk with Tosh grinning up at Jack, Gwen was in her chair, with the angle of the photo making it appear she was tucked against Ianto’s side.) He guessed they came from CCTV footage and Tosh was perhaps the slightest bit involved –although she denied it vehemently- he could not find it in himself to be angry or irritated.  
  
Originally, Gwen had been confused by the others’ sudden change Ianto knew, but she had gone along with them after Ianto had explained their brief conversation with Jack. She’d become a lot more manageable in the interim, it seemed that without the distraction that was Captain Jack Harkness, her morality parade took a respite, or perhaps it was just the near loss of Rhys that had shaken her enough to take stock of how she was living her life. (He could dream) Oh Ianto still found her grating at times, but appreciated that her heart seemed to be able to now encompass her coworkers and not just the random bystanders. Rhys’ proposal also helped, seemed to center her actually if anyone were to ask Ianto (no one did). In fact, Ianto actually found himself enjoying her presence, almost against his will. Tosh apparently felt the same, but he doubted she would ever admit it either, most likely out of some kind of subconscious continued grudge from Gwen’s affair with Owen months ago.  
  
As for Owen, he was suddenly an entirely different beast. Oh he was still an insufferable prat who didn’t know when to keep his damn mouth shut, but his barbs were playful instead of poisonous, he was more tactile –especially with Tosh. Ianto hadn’t asked what had happened to them in The Year that Wasn’t other than that they hadn’t separated from each other as Ianto had been forced to. He had an inkling though, but would wait until Jack returned – much like they were doing for him. If their year had been anything like his, he didn’t think they would want to have to recount the events more than once.  
  
So, two weeks later, Ianto had a new flat, a new appreciation for his coworkers (friends?) and everything was –relatively- back to normal.  
  
And then a blue police box appeared on the Plass early one morning, just as Ianto was cleaning up from feeding Myfanwy breakfast.  
  
He bypassed the stairs and cog door and started up the invisible lift despite his hatred of the thing (really, he hated heights). He made it to the surface just as the door of the blue box creaked open.  


__-  
_ _

“Cardiff! Well now that’s interesting.” The Doctor removed his glasses, “You wouldn’t have anything to do with this, would you Captain?”  
  
Jack, with his greatcoat flung over the rail beside him shook his head, “Don’t look at me. Maybe the old girl just wants me gone.”  
  
“Oh, I hardly think that’s the reason.”  
  
Rose skittered to the doors and Jack was treated to a pleasant flashback involving a young girl with too much mascara and a two-hearted alien with a very prominent nose.  
  
“Twenty first century?” she asked, smiling over her shoulder, fingers wrapped around the door handle.  
  
“Yup! Home sweet home.” The Doctor wandered over with a skip in his step and hands in his pockets. Jack twitched and slowly picked up his coat.  
  
“Millennium Plass too, right back where we started.” The Doctor threw a smile to Martha who grinned back uneasily. After the Doctor turned back round Martha slid away down the hall. Jack wasn’t concerned, that girl may have been the strongest of them all.  
  
“Well, a good place as any to stretch our legs then!” Rose opened the door and stepped out.  
  
“Lovely! I do love Cardiff, Wales in general actually. So many castles! Coming Jack?” the Doctor skipped out after Rose.  
  
Jack slid his coat on and took a deep breath shoving his shaking, sweating hands deep into his pockets. He followed the Doctor out onto the Plass with his stomach in knots and a lump in his throat.  
  
The sun was the first thing to hit him, reflected directly off the water tower it blinded him for a moment before he turned his head to view the Plass in brilliant technicolor. He let out a shaky breath and took one step towards the visitor’s center before a figure appeared in front of the water tower. Taking in Ianto standing in front of the invisible lift Jack felt a kick to his lungs and stumbled one step forward before he realized that Ianto was sprinting towards him.  
  
“Oh-”  
  
Ianto hit him hard enough that Jack stumbled back into the TARDIS but was too busy clinging to Ianto with all the strength he could muster with muscles that suddenly felt like gelatin to give a damn. Jack buried his face in Ianto’s shoulder and took in the first easy breath since the Master had taken them prisoner. He smelt like coffee and salt water off the bay, the familiar clean scent of the soap he used and a bit like metal just like everyone in Torchwood Three, who took a bit of the Hub with them everywhere they went.  
  
“Ianto.” He was shaking hard enough that for a moment he thought he might fall down altogether.  
  
“I’ve got you, I’ve got you.” Ianto murmured and oh those Welsh vowels were more beautiful than Jack could have remembered. A fuzzy video call did not do them justice. Ianto rubbed Jack’s back slowly and it was by far more soothing than even the gentle hum of the TARDIS.  
  
“I missed you, I missed you so goddamn much.”  
  
He felt Ianto sigh, hot air ghosting over his neck, “I missed you too.”  
  
Jack smiled into Ianto’s shoulder and felt his knees start to steady, “We must look like damn idiots.”  
  
“I don’t give a fuck, sir.”  
  
Jack barked out a laugh and gave Ianto another squeeze before reluctantly stepping back. Ianto’s eyes were suspiciously shiny and Jack felt warmth wrap around her heart. It had been so long since someone was genuinely glad to see him just for being him and not a signifier of someone or something else. And in a dark suit paired with a crimson shirt, well Jack just couldn’t resist.  
  
“Did you just sense I was coming home today Mr. Jones?”  
  
“Sir?”  
  
“You’re wearing my favorite color.”  
  
Ianto snorted and leaned his forehead against Jack’s, somehow managing to look irritated and relieved at once, “Your favorite color is blue.”  
  
“Not on you it isn’t”  
  
“Sop.”  
  
“Very much so yes.” Jack grinned. Nothing and no one was dragging him from that spot until he was good and ready damn it.  
  
“Does Torchwood always welcome time travelers this warmly?”  
  
Jack was going to strangle the Doctor.  
  
Ianto pulled back and turned to face their apparent audience, mask of indifferent polite formality firmly back in place faster than Jack could blink. Rose with her arm looped with the Doctor’s, stood smiling pleasantly but Jack had to fight the urge to take Ianto, run to the Hub, put it in lockdown and never come out. He pasted on a smile and snuck an arm around Ianto’s waist, relaxing in relief when the Welshman didn’t pull away as he half expected.  
  
“I really hope not, I might just get jealous for the first time in my life. Ianto this is the Doctor and Rose Tyler. Doc, Rose, this is Ianto Jones, archivist and coffee god.”  
  
“Pleasure.” Ianto nodded in that same way he did when dealing with tourists.  
  
Rose beamed, “Nice to meet you Ianto.” Jack however was distracted from the warmth of Rose’s reply.  
  
The Doctor was staring very hard at Ianto, who in turn was meeting his gaze with a cool, even stare of his own. Jack was concerned for a moment, body reacting on instinct to the possibility of a displeased Timelord. He could feel Ianto in absolute stillness beside him, not a single quiver to give away his emotions or any way for Jack to read him at all.  
  
“Doctor, welcome back to Cardiff. Thank you for returning our good Captain in such good time.” Jack froze, Ianto’s words contained fury and distaste that Jack hadn’t heard since he ordered the other man to shoot the Cyberwoman in their base so long ago.  
  
“He was very adamant for some reason.” The Doctor returned, just as coolly. Jack felt an unwanted shiver run up his spine and tightened his grip on Ianto’s hip under his suit jacket. “You were at Torchwood in London.” It wasn’t a question.  
  
“Indeed.”  
  
Rose was looking between the Doctor and Ianto with increasing concern and confusion. Jack was just feeling a pit of ice growing in his stomach. Over the Plass the sun slowly started to rise higher and Cardiff began to wake. God, he just wanted to go inside. He wanted to say goodbye to the Doctor and Rose and say ‘see you again’ and go inside and have coffee with Ianto in the safe seclusion of his office. He wanted to eat one of the pastries he knew Ianto would have picked up and listen to Ianto tut as he got crumbs everywhere and wait for the inevitable appearance of the rest of his team. He didn’t think he was asking for much really.  
  
“Doctor?” Rose implored.  
  
“Ianto, let’s just go inside.” Jack squeezed Ianto’s hip again and dropped his voice to a bare, near desperate, whisper “ _Please. _”  
  
He felt Ianto practically deflate next to him and the tense energy dispersed from him like it had never existed at all. Jack felt much like he had just defused a Hidrigian stealth bomb.  
  
“Thank you again for bring Jack home. I hope you find you stay in Cardiff pleasant. However, I do ask you call beforehand for your next visit. Good day.” Ianto stepped away leaving Jack feeling cold, the Welshman nodded at the Doctor and shook Rose’s hand, sparing half a grin to her, before he started towards the tourist office with a meaningful side eye glance at Jack.  
  
“I’ll start the coffee, sir.”  
  
Jack watched Ianto until he disappeared around the corner before meeting the Doctor’s stare. Well, stare was putting it kindly, it was half a step short of a glare with hints of disapproval and reprobation, a charming mix.  
  
“Jack-”  
  
“If the next words out of your mouth include Cybermen or bad idea, I don’t want to hear it. We dealt with it, it’s done, over, and I trust him with everything I have in me.” His stomach was in knots but he stood his ground with a confidence he no longer really felt.  
  
The Doctor’s mouth clicked shut and he leaned back sharply, rocking on his heels like he’d been struck. “Well then, it seems you have Cardiff handled.”  
  
“Much as you can handle an interdimensional rift through space and time.” Jack’s grin felt brittle.  
  
“Jack, you know you could come with us.” Rose took his hand and squeezed.  
  
Jack clasped both of his hands around hers, “I know Rosie, but I’m happy here. It’s my home.” She smiled back but didn’t look like she quite believed him. Jack couldn’t blame her, for one: travelling with the Doctor was addictive like nothing else. Not only that but the Jack she remembered traveled the stars like his life depended on it; always so excited to see something new, be somewhere different. The Captain Jack she’d met so long ago in his past had been a far different man who had not lost or seen as much as the Jack who stood before her there on the Plass. The conman she had known had never been in love with a twenty-first century man from Wales. (If Jack had done anything productive over the last year from hell, it was ending his perpetual lies to himself where Ianto was concerned.)  
  
“I promise Rose, I’m happy.”  
  
Rose leaned up and kissed his cheek, “Alright, but we _are _coming back to visit.” She poked him I the chest with one long finger and a tongue in cheek grin.  
  
Jack smirked, “I’d be insulted if you didn’t.”  
  
Rose giggled and gave him a quick hug before heading into the TARDIS. The Doctor strolled up to Jack, eyes on Rose as the TARDIS door closed behind her. He kept a very precise foot between himself and the Torchwood Captain.  
  
“You’re sure about this?”  
  
Jack sighed, “Yes Doctor. I have a team who needs me…and more than that, I kinda need them.”  
  
The Doctor sighed, “Alright…here though.” He held out his hand and gently took Jack’s wrist. The buzzed his sonic screwdriver over Jack’s vortex manipulator for a moment, “Now you can call me should you ever find the need.”  
  
“And you’ll actually come this time?”  
  
The Doctor smiled, old, tired, and a little chagrined, “I swear it.”  
  
“I’ll hold you to it then.” Jack stepped back and out of the way of the TARDIS, “See ya Doc.”  
  
“Goodbye Captain.”  
  
Jack threw up a short salute as the Doctor climbed into the TARDIS, but he was halfway to the tourist center before the blue box had completely disappeared.  
____

_____  
-  
_ _ _ _ _

__Ianto stood by the coffee machine ignoring the worries rearing in his mind. Jack was there to stay he had made that plainly apparent, but Ianto’s doubts were slowly becoming louder than his sense.  
  
“Do we just not have an alarm anymore or did Owen break it?”  
  
Ianto let out a slow breath and turned to smile at Jack as he bounced towards him, a cheerfully fake smile on his lips.  
  
“Tosh turned it off, none of us found it very likeable these last few weeks.” Ianto offered out Jack’s blue striped mug. Likeable was putting it lightly actually, Ianto had dropped an entire tray of dishes the first morning Tosh and Owen had come in and the cog door alarm scared him badly enough. They had found him in the kitchen shaking as he struggled to clean up the shattered plates. He had begged off that he was fine, but less than an hour later the same alarm went off when Gwen came in and Tosh had ended up under her desk, Owen had flinched hard enough that he got a bruise on his hip where he hit the autopsy table, and Ianto had made the decision to turn the thing off. Gwen had been confused, but went along with it out of concern for the others.  
  
“So, I haven’t been gone long?” Jack’s fingers brushed Ianto’s as he took the mug.  
  
“Two weeks.” Ianto inhaled briefly before taking a small sip of coffee. Two weeks but an entire year and two ends of the world between them.  
  
Jack sipped his coffee, closing his eyes and humming in appreciation. Nutty and warm and he was more at home with every passing moment.  
  
“Ianto?”  
  
“Yes Jack?”  
  
“There is a lot I have to tell you.” He stared into his mug, “A lot I _want_ to tell you…but can it wait?” he gazed up, riding through his nerves.__  
  
Ianto stepped into Jack’s space, cupping his cheek in one hand, the other taking the mug and placing it on the counter, “As long as you need.”  
  
Jack let out of long breath, leaning into Ianto, “Thank you.”  
  
Ianto hummed in the back of his throat and pulled Jack close, fingers sliding back to thread through Jack’s hair. Jack’s arms slid under Ianto’s suit coat, gliding over the silk back of his waistcoat.  


___-  
_ _ _

Tosh entered the Hub to the scent of coffee but no coffee _maker _. Not entirely unusual, but they had gotten in to the unspoken habit of meeting up every morning since time had apparently been reset. Tosh dropped her bag on her desk and her coat on her chair and was about to turn towards the kitchen when she caught a glimpse of movement in Jack’s office. Ianto had kept it tidy in Jack’s absence but otherwise them team had avoided it. Without Jack the space felt very empty.  
  
She rounded Owen’s station to see Ianto seated on Jack’s desk sans jacket with Jack gazing up at him from his own chair.  
  
“You’re back!”  
  
Jack looked up and grinned wide as she approached. He stood to greet her, brushing his hand over Ianto’s knee as he did so and opening his arms for Tosh to happily fall in to.  
  
“You certainly took your time.” She smirked as Jack’s arms encircled her. He smelt like warmth and coffee and that indefinable Jack scent (and if she wasn’t mistaken, a bit like Ianto as well) “Welcome home.”  
Owen and Gwen followed in quick succession not long after to happily welcome Jack home. The rest of the day was blessedly average, with two retrievals done by Gwen and Tosh, Owen sniping from the autopsy by as he dissected a humanoid blowfish. And all through the day there was Ianto. He spent far more time up in the main area than Jack knew to be normal. They were all certainly drinking more coffee than average. However, no one commented when Jack asked Ianto to catch him up on paperwork or when Ianto claimed Jack to go through expense reports for the two weeks he was gone, never mind Ianto typically just handed Jack the reports to sign. And when five o’clock rolled around and Tosh announced that the Rift was showing no signs of sending them out for the rest of the evening (bar Weevil sightings) Jack announced that everyone could go home.  
  
“But keep your phones on!”  
  
Owen threw up his hand in a rude gesture as the cog door closed behind him. Jack chuckled and sat back at his desk, eyes tracking Ianto as he tidied up the remnants of the team’s day. It seemed the slower the day, the bigger disaster was left on their desks.  
  
Ianto emptied the waste bins, picked up empty mugs and stacked papers into neat piles. Trash was taken down to the incinerator and the Hub was efficiently shut down for the evening before Ianto rejoined Jack in his office.  
  
“Good day.” Jack remarked as Ianto sat down across from him, loosening his tie.  
  
“Certainly not the worst.” Ianto smiled, “Ready to go?”  
  
“Hmm, that’s rather presumptuous, Mr. Jones.”  
  
“Is it now?” Ianto’s face was impassive, impossible to read. Jack smirked and stood, grabbing his coat only to have it taken from his hands and held out by Ianto to slide on.  
  
“Are you really saying no to a home cooked meal?” Ianto swept his hands across Jack’s shoulders, smoothing out invisible wrinkles.  
  
“If that’s what the kids are calling it these days.”  
  
“Jack.”  
  
“Sorry, sorry, yes I promise I’ll be good.”  
  
“Somehow, I highly doubt that.” Ianto’s smirk was a god given talent Jack decided, warmth filling him all over and he found himself looking forward to that evening, the next day, and every morning after where he got to see it.  
  
“You got me, whatever shall I do?”  
  
Ianto leaned forward and brushed the softest of kisses across his lips, and Jack melted.  
  
“You said something about a home cooked meal?”  
  
Ianto laughed, “Or we could just order takeout.”  
  
“Y’know…that sounds pretty damn good to me.”  
  
And so Jack followed Ianto home, to Ianto’s couch where they ate Chinese noodles and watched some reality show that Jack wouldn’t remember the next morning. What he would remember would be Ianto’s hand in his, and his skin under his hands, the softness of the mattress under them, and the security of falling asleep in Ianto’s arms and knowing he would get to do it all again the next day. He was so happy to finally be home.  
__

_____ _

**Author's Note:**

> I literally sat at my computer for two hours trying to format this thing and it still didn't end up the way I wanted it to but I'm done with it. I have no patience left
> 
> If someone wants to message me on how to properly format to italicize PLEASE DON'T HESITATE!! I'm pretty sure I just got most done by luck.


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